Minimum Order Values Are a Margin Problem
Most distributors have a minimum order value. In practice it is only as real as the person checking it at 8am.
Most distributors have a minimum order value — MOQ, the smallest order they will deliver for a given account. Fewer enforce it consistently. The gap between those two facts is where a surprising amount of margin goes.
Why minimums quietly stop being enforced
The rule is rarely simple. It is a global minimum with exceptions, plus per-customer minimums negotiated by whoever closed the account, plus informal allowances for accounts nobody wants to annoy. That entire structure typically lives in one or two people's memory.
At 8am with sixty orders queued, checking each one against a remembered rule is the first thing to go. The order gets processed. The under-minimum delivery goes out. The cost lands in a different department's number, so nobody connects it back.
The cost is not the delivery charge
An under-MOQ order does not just cost the delivery. It consumes a picking slot, a van space, and a drop on a route that had a finite number of them. On a tight route, the small order displaces a profitable one.
Enforcement only works if it is automatic
A minimum that is checked by a system is a minimum. A minimum that is checked by a person under time pressure is a suggestion.
- #120126 lines$459.46Under MOQDelivery 26 May 2026
- #120085 lines$310.00Under MOQDelivery 28 May 2026
MOQ will be achieved after consolidation.
- MOQ required
- $750.00
- Combined value
- $769.46
- Status
- MOQ met
Two deliveries become one. The minimum is met, the space on the van is not wasted, and nobody had to make an awkward phone call about a $310 order.
ManualOut checks the order value against the applicable minimum — global or customer-specific — as part of processing. Under-minimum orders are held rather than shipped and reconciled later.
Holding an order is not the same as refusing it
The useful move is usually not rejection. It is consolidation: two orders from the same customer that individually miss the minimum often clear it together. That turns an awkward conversation into a larger order, which is a better outcome for both sides.
The point is that the decision gets made deliberately, by someone who can see the numbers, rather than by default at 8am.